Collective Push for Modernization: The Emergence of Critical Reports in China during Social Transformation (1976-1989)

Zhemin Huang, University of Notre Dame

This research explores why critical reporting emerged in China between 1976 and 1989 and how social transformation influenced this journalistic evolution. The data consists of critical reports published in three major Chinese newspapers during the period, supplemented by archival materials such as journalists’ memoirs, interview compilations, and official documents on journalism and economic reform. These critical reports are coded and categorized into three subtypes: party-tradition critical reports, reform-focused critical reports, and enlightenment critical reports, each distinguished by unique formal and content features. The study reveals that, despite ongoing marketization, the market (readership) was not the primary force shaping journalism or driving the emergence of critical reports—unlike in the American context. Instead, two major forces were important: the Chinese state and the grassroots New Enlightenment Movement (NEM). Critical reports functioned as tools for both the state and journalists influenced by NEM to enlighten, persuade, and mobilize readers in support of reforms vital to a nationwide modernization project. This collective push for modernization, which spurred the rise of critical reports, is illuminated by Bourdieu’s field theory. The Chinese journalistic field aligned itself with the state’s modernization agenda, operating with little internal struggle over its own rules of functioning. This alignment reflects the journalistic field’s “heteronomy”—it heavily depended on the state’s monopoly over resources and its organizational control. Yet, the lack of struggle also stemmed from a shared modernization discourse. The journalistic field was influenced by modernization discourse autonomously produced by NEM, which, during that particular historical period, coincided with the state’s discourse. This contingent alignment, through the structural similarity between the journalistic and political fields, fostered a collective endeavor to produce critical reports: both fields sought to legitimize their definitions of the social world, so their shared modernization discourse enabled this collective effort across field boundaries.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 77. System and Action